9th Chords: A Stack Of Major & Minor 3rds

Our video today demonstrates how to stack 3rds to form different types of 9th chords.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNA8VmY0ngc&feature=youtu.be

Good morning again. This is Duane and we have been doing a series called “Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music.”  We’ve been talking about how to stack 3rds and form chords out of 3rds. We defined a 3rd as the third note of any scale but we said there’s two kinds of 3rds. There’s a major 3rd, made out of 2 whole steps, but then there’s also a minor 3rd made out of a step-and-a-half. If we stack a major 3rd on the bottom and a minor 3rd on top, what we have is a major chord. If on the other hand, we put the minor 3rd on the bottom and the major 3rd on top, we have a minor chord.

Last time, we talked about a 7th chord. A 4-note chord made out of the root,  3rd, 5th and 7th. We talked about some of those kinds of chords. That’s a C major 7th. That’s a C minor major 7th. That’s a C minor 7th, and so on. Today, I’d like to stack 3rds into a 9th chord. To do that, you’ll need a hand larger than mine. I have to use 2 hands to play a 9th chord but perhaps you can do it.

In any case, let’s take … this is the root, the 3rd, the 5th, the 7th, major 7th, and the 9th. A C major 9th chord would be that and the notation would just say “C9” but it means a major 9th. If they want a minor 9th, C minor 9th, you start with a minor chord and then yo have that 9th there but that implies the use of the dominant 7th, not the major 7th. That’s a C minor 9th.

Now let’s take a look at some other possibilities. If you had a C minor chord with a 9th but a major 7th, what would that be called? That would be C minor 9th major 7th. The notation would be a little complex there but it would work. Sometimes you see a notation for a flat 9th, and a flat 9th of course is there but that also implies the dominant 7th. Oops, I’m sorry. A C major chord with a flat 9th. The dominant 7th sounds like that. It’s used a lot to tighten chords, to tighten the chord progression before you move on.

How do you form 9th chords? You form them with a stack of 3rds. If you take a major 3rd, put a minor 3rd on top of it, put a minor 3rd on top of that, and major 3rd on top. In other words, major, minor, major, minor, minor, major, you’ve got a C dominant 9th. If on the other hand you take major, minor, major, minor, then you have a C major 9th. If you have a minor chord, you have a minor 3rd, major 3rd, minor 3rd, major 3rd. That’s a well-balanced chord.

That’s like I was saying yesterday, when I talked about 7th chords, minor 7th chords, they are very well-balanced, aren’t they? There’s a 9th chord that’s well-balanced because you have that grouping of minor intervals, major intervals, minor intervals, major intervals, so it’s well-balanced, whereas something like that is not well-balanced, isn’t it, because it’s minor, major, minor, minor. You have a more dissonant sound.

They’re all usable chords, so that’s how you form 9th chords out of 3rds. We’ll continue on tomorrow with another little lesson, video lesson. If you enjoyed this kind of thing, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our series. You’re going to learn a lot. Until I see you there, bye-bye for now.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNA8VmY0ngc&feature=youtu.be

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

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